The automotive lead Kuznets curve: an analysis of the theory and empirics

Este artículo analiza y critica a Hilton and Levinson (1998), al mostrar que aunque los autores hacen un estudio interesante, los fundamentos teóricos en los que se basa su análisis son restrictivos. Por ejemplo, el efecto de composición que proponen no permite la existencia de economías de escala contaminantes, y la teoría del efecto escala no consiente cambios en la tecnología. Finalmente, se muestra que el modelo empírico planteado puede estar arrojando resultados espúreos debido a la presencia de raíces unitarias. Sus resultados también podrían ser incorrectos debido a la falta de variables regresoras que la literatura académica ha mostrado explican el nivel de emisiones contaminantes en una economía. Adicionalmente, los autores no verifican su teoría con el modelo empírico presentado. En consecuencia, se proponen algunas sugerencias y futuros temas de investigación que podrían validar sus resultados y los de este tipo de estudios.Economía ambiental, curva medio ambiental de Kuznets, contaminación,crecimiento económico, regresión espúrea

Corruption, Economic Freedom and Political Freedom in South America: In Pursuit of the missing Link

Resumen: La corrupción se puede definir como "el abuso de la autoridad o confianza pública con fines privados". Sin embargo, esta definición sugiere que la corrupción es una enfermedad de la sociedad y no un síntoma resultante de problemas estructurales como la inequidad o falta de democracia. Luego de analizar información proveniente de Freedom House y Transparency International, este estudio concluye que la liberalización económica y la democracia no están directamente ni linealmente relacionadas con la corrupción en Suramérica. Otros determinantes como la inequidad (política y económica) son esenciales para un análisis integral de la corrupción. Adicionalmente, la literatura actual adolece de una definición holística de corrupción que permita identificar y entender sus "verdaderas" causas. Al examinar diez países suramericanos durante el periodo 1995-2008, el análisis de cointegración de panel de datos sugiere que la corrupción, el crecimiento económico y la democracia no están conjuntamente cointegradas ni están relacionadas linealmente; hay un eslabón perdido. Abstract: Corruption is defined as "the abuse of public authority or trust for private benefit." However, this paper argues that this definition frames corruption as a disease of society and not a symptom of structural problems such as inequality or lack of democracy. After analyzing data on corruption from Freedom House and Transparency International, this study concludes that corruption is not related to economic liberalization and democracy in a linear fashion. Other determinants such as inequality (political and economical) are lacking in the analysis of corruption. Additionally, the literature still lacks a comprehensive definition of corruption that may identify its "true" roots. A panel cointegration and panel data analysis suggests that corruption, economic growth and democracy are neither jointly cointegrated nor explained linearly; there is a missing link. Finally, this research is constrained to ten South American countries and the years 1995-2008.Corruption, Economic Growth, Panel Data, Panel Cointegration, Political Freedom, South America

Voting for the environment: the importance of democracy and education in Latin America

This study found that doubling the level of democracy in Latin America reduces CO2 emissions per capita by up to 6%. This relationship is estimated by using a fixed effects panel system of equations for 19 Latin American countries, between 1995 and 2008. Democracy acts as a conduit for increasing demands on environmental quality in Latin America, due to increases in urban population and prosperity. Nevertheless, this study has, at least, two caveats: first it cannot unveil the long run relationship between democracy and environmental quality in Latin America; and, secondly, this study assumes that democracy entails positives outcomes for countries adopting this political system

Non-Invasive Approaches for Low-Energy Retrofit of Buildings:Implementation, Monitoring and Simulation in a Living Lab Case Study

There is urgent need for Europe to transform into a low-carbon economy to reduce the risk of climate change. The building sector is responsible for nearly 40% of the total energy consumption in Europe. In order to achieve substantial energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, low-energy retrofitting of existing buildings becomes a very important challenge/opportunity in both domestic and non-domestic buildings. A considerable number of existing buildings are either protected or contain hazardous materials limiting the potential for conventional retrofitting approaches for improving the existing façades. Retrofitting Solutions and Services for the enhancement of Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings (RESSEEPE) is an EU-funded research project that focuses on the refurbishment of existing public buildings in different European cities. A case study approach is used to implement and monitor the performance of a range of building fabric materials. The case study focuses on a demo building in Coventry University, located within the city centre of Coventry. The paper documents the materials selection and the low-carbon refurbishment, monitoring and simulation process followed. As asbestos was found in the building, it was necessary to ensure that the materials and technologies selected didn’t interfere with the existing elements of the façade. The materials finally installed were specifically selected to work as an addition of layers rather than substitution of elements. The living lab nature of the demo-site aims to set an example for low carbon refurbishment in protected or existing buildings with hazardous materials, with a non-invasive approach based on state-of-the-art materials and technologies

Online Combinatorial Auctions for Resource Allocation with Supply Costs and Capacity Limits

We study a general online combinatorial auction problem in algorithmic mechanism design. A provider allocates multiple types of capacity-limited resources to customers that arrive in a sequential and arbitrary manner. Each customer has a private valuation function on bundles of resources that she can purchase (e.g., a combination of different resources such as CPU and RAM in cloud computing). The provider charges payment from customers who purchase a bundle of resources and incurs an increasing supply cost with respect to the totality of resources allocated. The goal is to maximize the social welfare, namely, the total valuation of customers for their purchased bundles, minus the total supply cost of the provider for all the resources that have been allocated. We adopt the competitive analysis framework and provide posted-price mechanisms with optimal competitive ratios. Our pricing mechanism is optimal in the sense that no other online algorithms can achieve a better competitive ratio. We validate the theoretic results via empirical studies of online resource allocation in cloud computing. Our numerical results demonstrate that the proposed pricing mechanism is competitive and robust against system uncertainties and outperforms existing benchmarks.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2004.0964

Massive stars in metal-poor dwarf galaxies are often extreme rotators

We probe how common extremely rapid rotation is among massive stars in the early universe by measuring the OBe star fraction in nearby metal-poor dwarf galaxies. We apply a new method that uses broad-band photometry to measure the galaxy-wide OBe star fractions in the Magellanic Clouds and three more distant, more metal-poor dwarf galaxies. We find OBe star fractions of ~20% in the Large Magellanic Cloud (0.5 Z_Solar), and ~30% in the Small Magellanic Cloud (0.2 Z_Solar) as well as in the so-far unexplored metallicity range from 0.1 Z_solar to 0.2 Z_solar occupied by the other three dwarf galaxies. Our results imply that extremely rapid rotation is common among massive stars in metal-poor environments such as the early universe.Comment: Conference proceedings for a talk in IAU Symposium 361: Massive Stars Near and Far, Ballyconnell, Ireland, 9-13 May 202